Thanos Rising: Marvel Teases Megavillain’s Long-Awaited Spotlight

We may be a couple of years out from Avengers: Infinity War Part 1, but that has never stopped Marvel from getting us hot and bothered well in advance. Recently Marvel’s co-president, Louis D’Esposito, tweeted a tease:

Seems like Thanos (a.k.a. the Mad Titan) is finally being tackled and molded to become the long-anticipated megavillain of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). While many of us are becoming increasingly anxious to see him finally stand up from the throne he’s been sitting on for the past several films, no one is more thrilled about it than his portrayer, Josh Brolin. In an exclusive interview with Collider’s Matt Goldberg, Brolin gushed about finally addressing the character’s development very soon with Marvel execs D’Esposito and Kevin Feige:

“I’m really excited about it. It’s the best decision, honestly, for a guy who stayed away from certain bigger genres.” Brolin added, “This decision, no matter how it turns out, I feel so good about. I love this character!”

Thanos first appeared on the scene in The Avengers (2012) as Loki’s failed puppetmaster. They had struck a deal in which Loki was given (what we now know from Avengers: Age of Ultron to be) the Mind Stone (set in a scepter) the only Infinity Stone Thanos ever seemed to actually have in his possession at any point. The gem would enable Loki to overtake Earth for himself and retrieve the Tesseract (allegedly the Space Stone, second of the six Infinity Stones we’ve seen thus far) for Thanos.

Fool me once
It could have been a sweet deal, but Thanos severely overestimated his hold over the God of Mischief. Loki had other plans, and they did not include handing over an Infinity Stone to the Mad Titan. It remains to be seen whether Loki was even aware that he possessed another Stone in his scepter. Regardless, it’s doubtful he would have returned it to Thanos as well.

After Loki’s invasion, the Mind Gem remained on Earth and the Tesseract traveled back to Asgard with Thor and Loki. The Aether (the Reality Stone) turned up in Thor: The Dark World and was eventually entrusted to The Collector on Nowhere.

Fool me twice
The Collector appeared again in Guardians of the Galaxy when he was flagged as a potential buyer for the Power Stone. Thanos, once again miscalculating his influence over would-be lackeys, relied upon the Kree despot, Ronan the Accuser, to locate and retrieve the Power Stone in exchange for a personal, genocidal favor. Once found, and realizing the destruction he could wield with it, Ronan chose instead to keep the stone for himself and threatened to ultimately come for Thanos. Those plans were thwarted by the titular Guardians who repossessed the stone and gave custody of it to the peacekeeping Nova Corps.

If you want something done right
Apparently Thanos has had enough of everyone’s crap and putting his faith in the most duplicitous characters (honestly, he needs to pick up a comic book once in awhile). The end credit scene in Avengers: Age of Ultron sees him finally out of his freaking chair and reaping the Infinity Gauntlet, the glove destined to house all six gems rendering it the ultimate power in the universe.

The pendulum swings
Amazingly he, as of now, still actually has none of the stones. Plus, sensing something’s definitely up following the advent of the fourth stone in a very short amount of time, Thor has returned to Asgard to investigate just who is behind all the hijinks of late.

The bad news is Thanos probably knows where to find those four stones, if not all six, and is now set on taking matters into his own hands, so to speak.

Patience is a virtue they say
The payoff is still two years down the road, though, so we’ll have to make do with the more immediate offerings beginning with Captain America: Civil War later this spring. There are still two stones unaccounted for, after all. It’s also going to take a lot of time and celluloid to gather the multitude of forces that will ultimately oppose Thanos before it’s his time to shine. Whether or not we’ll see him in small doses between now and the impending Infinity War remains to be seen.

Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 descends upon theaters May 4, 2018, followed by Avengers: Infinity War Part 2 on May 3, 2019.

Denise Heard-Bashur

<p>Managing editor for GeekFeed.com living in the desolation of the west Texas desert. Proud mom, photo editor by day, former film major, MCU maven. Founder of the Free Snowpiercer & Free Loki campaigns. Also hung up on LOTR, Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Outlander, Friends, and cinema in general. Good, bad…it’s all awesome. I’m a firm believer that if you haven’t read the book yet, see the movie first. Saves on tons of disappointment and spoilers. SAN DIMAS HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL RULES!</p>